Chapter 3733 — Journey to the Market Again
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
Beyond that, Wei Zhao's daily routine for the days that followed was simply this: by day he went to the Spirit Jade Hall to mine, secretly pocketing two or three pieces of waste jade, and by night he returned to cultivate, consolidating his strength at the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage.
However, before the next stage of the assessment began, there was still a major event awaiting Wei Zhao: the once-a-month opening day of the inner street had finally arrived!
Ever since he had first laid eyes on the Star Ink Stone at the Hong Clan Merchant Guild, Wei Zhao had thought of nothing else and had been making all manner of preparations for it. After all, that ghostly fellow had once been a figure of no small renown across the entire Cloud Terrace Island; anything even he regarded highly could not possibly be an ordinary item, and Wei Zhao was determined to have it.
Yet whenever he recalled that inner-sect disciple of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion he had encountered at the Hong Clan Merchant Guild—the one who had shown just as much interest in the Star Ink Stone—Wei Zhao could not help feeling a little uneasy.
True, the price tag of one thousand spirit jades was enough to deter the vast majority of people, and because the stone was so unremarkable in appearance, few paid it any attention, and still fewer would spend so many spirit jades on a worthless rock whose use no one even knew. But there were always those in this world who knew value when they saw it—like that inner-sect disciple of the Soaring Heaven Pavilion.
Judging from how he had behaved at the time, that disciple probably did not have a thousand spirit jades on him. And although he came from the Soaring Heaven Pavilion, apart from young masters like Xu Lingchong, whose backgrounds were impossibly deep, a thousand spirit jades was always a colossal sum for the vast majority of inner-sect disciples there—not something easily scraped together.
But if one were truly determined, truly set on obtaining it, then a thousand spirit jades might not be entirely out of reach. At least, Wei Zhao had heard from his long-suffering senior brother rumors that some inner-sect disciples of the Triple Stack Pavilion were privately running usurious loans.
Through such channels, the price would be enormous—catastrophic, even—but gathering a thousand spirit jades would hardly be difficult!
Wei Zhao did not know whether that Soaring Heaven Pavilion inner-sect disciple was as determined as he was, nor how far that man would go for the Star Ink Stone, but at this very moment he already felt an inexplicable pressure.
If that man had truly gritted his teeth and borrowed a thousand spirit jades, and if he had the right to come and go freely in the inner street rather than having to wait for opening day like Wei Zhao, then the Star Ink Stone would truly slip through his fingers!
What was more, a full month had now passed. Apart from that man, might other discerning competitors have appeared? Perhaps that Star Ink Stone had long since fallen into someone else's hands?
For a moment, Wei Zhao found himself fretting over gains and losses. But he quickly caught himself and said with a chuckle, "If I get it, it is my fortune; if I lose it, it is my fate. Whether or not I can win it, so long as I do my utmost, there will be nothing to regret."
Having calculated the date, Wei Zhao set out before dawn on the very day the inner street opened, donning the Thousand-Silk Mask and traveling under the stars and moon.
He intended to be the first through the gates when the inner street opened, to snatch the Star Ink Stone from the Hong Clan Merchant Guild before anyone else. And if he arrived only to find it gone, already bought up by someone else, then that would simply be fate—he was not the one destined for that Star Ink Stone.